Hamududu says citizens won’t have to worship him when he becomes President

Party of National Unity (PNU) leader Highvie Hamududu says the big man syndrome of worshiping the President even when he is wrong, will end once he forms government in 2021.

Speaking when he featured with his executive team on ‘The Assignment’ programme on MUVI TV yesterday, Hamududu said it was such syndromes that always led to dictatorial tendencies.

And Hamududu said President Edgar Lungu was out of place to react in that manner on the opinions of the Law Association of Zambia (LAZ), when they advised that neither the President nor the National Assembly had the power to extend the Threatened State of Emergency beyond the approved 90 days.

“Let us do away with a one man political systems, let us do away with the big man syndrome. today, most of the political parties are embracing the big man syndrome that the President is never wrong. The big man syndrome boarders towards dictatorship. The president is not the alpha and omega, the president is the one presiding over the country. Does the president know everything? The answer is no,” Hamududu said.

“The invocation of Article 31 is not a solution. Even if they wanted to use that route to deal with the perceived situation in the country, thats not a sustainable solution. What is a sustainable solution? We need a professional and capable police. MMD had MMD police, PF has PF police, we need a professional and non partisan police so that this police must be equal to the challenge. So we need a professional, capacitated, and well trained police because that is the only long term solution.”

Hamududu condemned the sentiments by President Edgar Lungu that the Law Association of Zambia was free to form a political party other than abusing the legal profession.

“The issue of the Law Association of Zambia and the Republican President is one example of reactionary politics in this country. The Law Association of Zambia is a group of lawyers and their opinion I think is superior than any other body. Just like issues of engineering, the engineering institute of Zambia must be respected by its stakeholders on issues of engineering. The Economic Association of Zambia must be respected on the views it holds. Then for us stakeholders I think we save a better position to introduce specialized politics. The Law Association of Zambia are giving expert opinions on issues such as Article 31 and I think for us political stakeholders it will do us good to listen to such a body of experts in that area,” Hamududu said.

“There was an issue of Ministers staying in office after the dissolution of parliament, the Law Association of Zambia advised then, the government in fact did not listen but later on they (LAZ) proved they were right and I think on matters of law as a collective body, they are better placed to advise on issues of that nature. In that case, the President is out of place to react in that manner on the opinions of the Law Association of Zambia, they just gave an opinion, you can take it or leave it.”

And speaking during the same TV programme, PNU interim vice president Kasote Singogo said the party would end the tendency of arresting predecessor Presidents.

“2021, we are taking over government as PNU, this business of incarcerating Presidents for example in 1991, Kenneth Kaunda is incarcerated, later on PF takes over power, they start antagonizing Bwezani Banda. For us when we take over government, there will be no such a thing and I think that must be put on record because those are the things that lead to the kind of scenarios that we have. There is too much reactionary politics in this country. It is ‘who has said what’ against the other. The country cannot be caught up in reaction. We need to go to the fundamentals,” said Singogo.

“We don’t have to be reactionary when a body of experts gives an opinion. We are not going to create a culture where we begin to warship the president. Its unfortunate that [you] do not attend our central committee meeting, you should have seen how we were tearing him apart in areas where we thought things needed to change. We are not doing that because we want to demean the status of our president, we are doing that because we want him to be ready for the nation. What we are going to do ourselves is to come up with a system based government, a system does not choose, red means stop for everybody, green move for everybody including those on bicycles. It is possible to have systems which do not choose because when you have a system based government! You don’t look at tribe. The system itself becomes the basis of regulations.”